McMaster Museum of Art M(M)A and Open Studio are pleased to announce that M(M)A has acquired three works by Carl Beam, Janet Cardiff, and Rita Letendre from Open Studio’s historic archive collection through its Print Sales program. These works now enter M(M)A’s Permanent Collection.

About Open Studio:

Open Studio was founded in 1970 and is one of Canada’s oldest and largest artist-run printmaking centres and Toronto’s only artist-run facility focused on contemporary print practice. Guided by its vision that “Printmaking opens the door to accessible, innovative, and inspiring art,” Open Studio supports and advances the field through artistic production, exhibitions, and learning. For more than five decades, it has provided artists and the public with access to specialized facilities and programming that advance contemporary print practice.

M(M)A is pleased to support Open Studio’s commitment to advancing the learning, production and promotion of printmaking. These acquisitions celebrate Open Studio’s exceptional, decades-long history of supporting local, national and international artists in their printmaking practice.

These new acquisitions align with M(M)A’s mission to expand its permanent collection through the inclusion of contemporary Indigenous and Canadian artists, while fostering more inclusive, dynamic, and experiential relationships between audiences, public galleries and museums, and all visual arts organizations and institutions.

We are grateful to Executive Director Patrick Macaulay, Laura Bydlowska, Rebecca Travis, and Angela Piere Segovia, along with the decade committees, for their work in reviewing and refining the archive into a curated collection, which laid the foundation for these acquisitions. We also thank the artists and their estates for their consent to release works through the Print Sales program, making these acquisitions possible. Together, they reflect Open Studio’s ongoing commitment to supporting artists with the long-term placement of these works in the M(M)A Collection.

To find out more about Open Studio, visit https://openstudio.ca